Where's The Love For Waluigi?

When you think about characters in Nintendo’s history that people either really love or REALLY hate Waluigi is always near the top of that list. There is no middle ground, it seems, and with him and more often that not he gets the hate side of that equation. My opinion differs a bit from that. He’s one of the few characters in the Mario series that is considered by some to be one of the more memorable characters that still doesn’t have their own game; even Daisy’s gotten more attention than him.

Waluigi was created in 2000 by Fumihide Aoki for Mario Tennis on the Game Boy Color. He’s made several appearances since then, almost exclusively in the sports titles. He’s generally thought of as Wario’s sidekick and the antithesis of Luigi, yet he’s never appeared in any of the Wario Land games and is used exclusively for comic relief. He even has been used as alternate color palettes for both Mario (Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door) and Luigi (Super Smash Bros. Brawl). Waluigi seems to appear everywhere in the Mario universe, but never as the main character in his own game.

Is it possible that with that one credit to his name he could be made into one of those characters that people remember a bit more fondly and he gets a bit more respect? I think it’s very possible. It’s very apparent he’s been a thorn in the side of the Mario Brothers for quite some time. The intro videos to all the sports titles show that he and Luigi don’t particularly like each other. Why not create a game where he could be behind the kidnapping of Daisy or someone and it’s Luigi’s turn to rescue the Princess. You would play as Waluigi, who runs his own motor oil business by the way, and that could be used to further his background, which is almost non-existent.

There are plenty of chances for the love triangle between the three to be explored, in so far as those relationships are explored in the Mario universe. Waluigi has a thing for Daisy, who has a thing for Luigi and that may be the basis of Waluigi’s hatred of the green plumber.

The deepest part of Waluigi’s background would be his name, which apparently has more meaning than many people think. His name is a portmanteau of the Japanese world warui, which means bad or evil and when changed to Waruji would literally mean ‘evil Luigi’. Makes sense. It is also apparently a sort of condescending apology in Japanese which fits perfectly with his attitude.

Waluigi has the beginnings of what could make for a wonderful character if Nintendo would take the time to explore him a bit more. I really like the character as I’m quite fond of Luigi. The evil counterpart would naturally be more interesting to me than the Wario version of Mario. I would love to see Waluigi get more respect than he does in the Mushroom Kingdom, he just needs to perfect opportunity to explore that a bit more.